Week of June 4 - 10, 2017

Highlights:

Spiritual
We had a wonderful Sunday! Fast and Testimony was filled with inspiring experiences of faith through trials and learning. The rest of our meetings were also wonderful.

I completed one letter to my inmate friend, Jessica, and then received one later and felt I should write her another one, so I did later in the week.

Dad tried to make home teaching appointments, but everyone was very busy so they will be  contacted next Sunday to schedule.

Scouts went not so well on Wednesday. We knew that the twin brothers that joined us in March had always been very active in Primary and had a hard time, but we had not before experienced any troubles, in excess of talking and wiggles...until Wednesday. We just couldn't get either boy to engage in anything we were doing. One brother was going around the room over and over, and then I noticed the other one looking off into the sky. By the end, while my co leader was teaching, I was literally wrestling the two, on either side of me, and one bit me...lightly I will say, but still bit me. Very discouraging. Lots of prayer is being utilized to see what we can do....

Dad enjoyed his regular Wednesday night temple session.

I am in Alma 57 in the Book of Mormon.

I have indexed 17523 records so far this year.

Family

The Wilkins Family
These kids enjoyed their last week and last day of school.

Poor Sam! He had such fun swimming in their little pool this week, but ended up with a pretty nasty sunburn!

Adam celebrated his 14th birthday on Friday! Happy Birthday, Adam!


I found out Thursday afternoon that they were indeed coming to Grandma's birthday party. So excited! They came to visit, and ended up in the pool after her party...

Anna is enjoying all these cousins to play with!! 
The Ethan Rice Family
Grampy Wade arrived to have fun with the kids while Ethan traveled to Phoenix for another busy work week for him. Ethan did have time Thursday after all the training he had given for dinner and we made sure Nate and Jess could get a chance while they were in town to see him while he was in town.

 It was fun talking to Kaylee while Ethan visited. She showed me her room, her bed (which she now is sleeping in! Hooray!!), her new fish, and her drawing on her easel. I saw Wade's back but he was far too interested in toys to look at Grammy! Kaylee and I played two games of coast to coast hide and seek and musical chairs before the phone gave out.

Their sweet dog, Lexi, died on Friday. She lived a good life and was a good pet!

The Doran Rice Family
Doran, Amber, Kelsie and Kooper had a good week. It was great to enjoy Grandma's birthday party with them. It got kind of boring for the kids, and so I took Kooper and Annalee to the nursery to enjoy some awesome toys. Doran and Josh playing a little indoor soccer too.

The Morgan Rice

Family doing fine.

Kayty
Kayty had a trying work week. The place she is at is really poorly managed and she is glad that she has the opportunity to leave in July and return to CVS.

Lows this week:  1 major with seizures, 1 minor

The Nathan Rice Family
Nathan found out on Monday that he and his friend will lead the BYU Idaho machine shop once he returns to Idaho. He was very happy, and it solved a great problem, since Jessica is planning on taking classes next semester, and with Elisabeth coming, it would have been very hard for her to continue working for her family plumbing business, so that was truly a blessing. They stayed with us Tuesday night and I cared for Annalee Wednesday morning...we strolled to feed the goat,

went to get groceries,and played the rest of the morning until she crashed asleep in my arms and took a couple of hour nap.

Jessica had that nasty glucose test this week. They didn't tell her to stay hydrated, and by the time they got the blood drawn, she was bruised and literally passed out. She had a rough 24 hours but recovered by the next day.

They visited a few times after work and we had a great time playing! Annalee loved seeing Kooper and Kelsie, and meeting Adam, Grace, Josh and Sam at Grandma's party.

Work
Dad's week was full of meetings, spreadsheets, old directives, new directives, supplier visits, and a trip to a supplier in Prescott on Friday.

I did my typical dust, vacuum, mop, scrub bathrooms, laundry, tomato picking, chicken feeding and locking up, as well as baking and decorating cupcakes for Grandma's birthday party.

Dad's Garden
Tomatoes are about done...and I am thankful. We gave a few away, and I used some dried ones in a layered olive oil and basil concoction that we put in the fridge to use later.

Tomato count: 1463
Year of the House Part 2
No house work this week...

Other highlights
I had to buy whipping cream for the cupcake icing. I like Trader Joes Shelf Stable whipping cream, so I ventured near Arrowhead Mall and bought it. Hobby Lobby was right across the street, and I had never been through the store, so I ventured in and saw this...

The good thing about saving Kayty is that I know her glucose level and am more comfortable venturing further from home on my run...thus, I got to run to the temple...

Happy 80th Birthday, Grandma Dorrie!

Lots of family...good food...awesome fun!

Dick's son,Rick talking to Dee in background. Kelsie, Kooper, Rachael and Amber in foreground

Annalee

Nathan and Doran, with Dick's daughter, Cindy, in the background

Dee, Dorrie, Susan, Tom, Curtis, Jenny

Josh, Nathan, Adam, Grammy, and Grace

Liz Wallin, Jade and James in background. Shelley Harris and Jerry Toscano in front

 Someone got my camera and helped take some great shots...

Clean up time

Best part...In just a few days time, I was with most of my kids...(sorry you couldn't be there, Morgan!) I can't wait to see the pic Jenny took!

Not so highlights
I walked out of that exhausting and awful scout meeting...and my car would not start. I texted Dad bu the session had already started at the temple, and I tried to call Kayty over and over to come get me...but I ended up walking home, in my scout shirt carrying my scout book bag. I was stopped once by our neighborhood "golfcart getstapo"chief, Scott Anderson, who commented to me that he knew of no scout meetings in the neighborhood (I was very hot and very tired, and almost told him that he really knew little to nothing about the neighborhood, since he thought that a cannery would be running in the basement of the temple before it was every built), which I responded that I taught cub scouts at the church. He offered me a ride home, but I declined and hoped Kayty would come and get me. Dad checked it out after his temple session...wouldn't even jump. So my car sat in the church parking lot all night and he replace the battery the next morning. I was very thankful that it died where I could get home, and dad could fix and it wasn't too far to get it done. Could have been much worse.

Week of May 28 - June 3, 2017

Highlights:

Spiritual
Sunday was a wonderful day! We started out waking early and heading to Doran and Amber's ward, where Papa was able to confirm Kelsie a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint and confer on her the gift of the Holy Ghost. It was a very special day and Dad was so honored to be asked.

We headed out quickly and I went to a wonderful choir practice. We were also fasting, as the bishop called a special fast for the very ill sisters in our ward who were both just diagnosed with cancer. Sacrament Meeting was great and the choir sang "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Brother Russ Barton gave an awesome talk on putting on the whole armor of God, and gave examples throughout his life where he made choices to add to that armor, layer upon layer. It sounded like the topic perfect letter for my friend, Jessica, so I worked on that on  

Dad and I home taught one family right after church, and then he went alone later to teach another family. (I had planned on going, but when Annalee came to the door and said "Wanna play?", well...grandchildren rule! Our home teachers visited on Tuesday evening.

No scouts this week since they have day camp Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The temple opened this week and dad attended the Thursday night session.

I was asked to participate in a stake genealogy/indexing event on Friday night. I was there as an assistant of sorts if anyone wanted to learn how to index. Not many people came but I did get some indexing of my own done while I waited around.

I am in Alma 38 in the Book of Mormon. I am also reading the June Ensign magazine.

I have indexed 16727 records so far this year. 

Family

The Wilkins Family
The Wilkins Family had a wonderful week, starting with their pizza night on Saturday, and it seems that Josh and Sam are the most excellent sauce makers in the family!
 

Happy Birthday, Mike on the 31st!!

Adam completed 8th Grade and we learned that he was accepted to Las Vegas Academy for International Studies and The Arts, where he chose an Arts major.


The Ethan Rice Family
Ethan and family headed out to Swainsboro  and spent a couple of days at this lovely bed and breakfast and explored...

 

 

 
 





 
 
They had a good week, and Wade achieved 1/2 year of life...and had some great pics taken! This is what Cameo shared:
Wade is 6 months old today! There isn't a food he doesn't like. He is starting to crawl and just today, he was pulling himself up in his crib. He also can drink from a straw. 😳 He adores his sister and loves to laugh. We love you Wade!

This is the actual football that Dad got for Ethan when he was born. Dad brought it to the hospital the next day, and it occupied the isolette with Ethan. Ethan remembered the ball, searched boxes to find it, oiled it up and tried to inflate, but it still looks awesome!

The Doran Rice Family

The Morgan Rice Family
Morgan and Christy are well. Morgan is enjoying his four day work weeks and added another fish to the talley chart in the hallway. (A reminder that anyone else who has caught any fish needs to let me know).

Kayty
Kayty had a good work week, and spent the morning on Saturday at Lake Pleasant with the singles ward. She seemed to have a good time and only got a little sunburned.

The Nathan Rice Family
Nathan and family visited on Sunday night. We thought they were heading to Young to her mom's place there, but Jess had worked over ten hours on a term paper for her class during the weekend. They went out to Bass Pro Shop on Monday, since the Aquarium here is cost prohibitive! On their way, they thought it would be fun to cook ribs and eat and swim with us, and they invited Doran, Morgan and families to join. They planned, assigned food, and it came out GREAT! We had Nathan's delicious ribs, Doran and Amber brought hot dogs and brats, Christy and Morgan grilled corn on the cob and she then slathered it with all the goodness that made it those Mexican corn on the cobs I have always wanted to try...they were every bit as good as I had imagined. Dad made tons of french fries and we swam (though the pool was still too cold for me...but again, anything for a grandkid!)

I came in the house to a clean kitchen, swept floor, and later I went to the playroom and it was all cleaned up...Jessica knew where everything went and she was an absolute angel to do it. Thank you so much everyone for making it a great, great time!!!

Nate, Jess and Anna spent Wednesday and Thursday nights with us this week so I could care for Anna while they worked.

Work
Dad headed to Cottonwood to visit a supplier on Tuesday, and then hurried back for more meetings. There was a major emergency holding up an airplane for Boeing, so dad was working with two companies and more vice presidents that you can count. We hope the part is inspected tomorrow and gets to Boeing in good shape soon after inspection. Dad had a co-worker get totally fed up with their huge work load...so he quit. (Now, the remaining three have an even larger work load.) There is also rumor of a July 4th week long furlough. Not so fun!

In addition to my regular vacuuming, dusting, mopping, scrubbing bathroom toilet and shower, laundry, I picked tomatoes, ground wheat and baked bread, chopped tomatoes for salsa, and kept the finances in order.

Dad's Garden
We roasted tomatoes in the pizza oven Monday and made five bags of thick sauce.

Tomato total so far: 1411

Year of the House Part 2
Dad got the wall flat and ready for drywall (the remaining wall that has no drywall). It has been quite a chore to get these walls flat, but with the size of tile I selected, they need to be as flat as can be or the tile will be a mess. He found the stone slabs we need and is getting ready to get with Jessica and her dad to make the arrangements.

Other highlights
Dad got the palm tree trimmed just in time for the quarterly city pick up. Hooray!!!

I was actually able to do a little exercising, along with my jogging. Not as many repetitions, and no weight lifting yet, but it is progress.

I have miraculously kept the hibiscus from Morgan and Christy alive!

Not so highlights
Nothing but many sweet people in our ward suffering major health problems. There are many to remember as we pray.